Ithaca (Ἰθάκη)

The Geography of Ithaca

The island of Ithaca is the setting for roughly half of the Odyssey — Books 1 through 4, and Books 13 through 24. Homer's description of it is remarkably specific. It is, Odysseus tells the Phaeacians, "low-lying, farthest out to sea toward the darkness, while others lie apart toward dawn and the sun" (Od. 9.25-26). It is not, he says, a good island for horses or for wide flat meadows. It is rugged, stony, good for goats and for growing vines and grain in the valleys. It is, in short, not a grand or wealthy island — but it is home.

The Ionian island group that Homer describes includes Ithaca itself, plus three other islands: Same (Kephallenia), Zacynthus, and Doulichion — the last of which has been variously identified with islands or with part of the mainland. Modern Ithaki (the Greek name for the island) is a small, mountainous island off the northeast coast of Kephallenia, separated from it by a narrow channel. Its highest peak, Mount Neretos, is the ancient Neritum of the poem.

Ancient vs Modern: The Location Debate

Perhaps surprisingly, the identification of modern Ithaki with Homer's Ithaca has been contested. The problem is a famous passage in which the poet Telemachus says that Ithaca has a harbor with two entrances — a description that does not easily match any harbor on modern Ithaki. The island also does not seem particularly "low-lying" — it is, in fact, quite mountainous.

In the early nineteenth century, the British traveler William Gell proposed that Homer's Ithaca was not the island of Ithaki but rather the Paliki peninsula, the westernmost prong of nearby Kephallenia, which in antiquity may have been separated from the rest of Kephallenia by a narrow channel or isthmus (the so-called Dodhwell channel) that has since silted up. This theory has found supporters in modern archaeologists and amateur researchers, most notably in a high-profile recent project that argued for the Paliki identification on geological and topographical grounds. The debate is ongoing, and no consensus exists. For most readers, it suffices to say that modern Ithaki has made a convincing claim to be Odysseus's island, and that its inhabitants have cultivated that identity for at least two thousand years.

Mount Neritum and the Natural World

The landscape of Ithaca, as Homer describes it, is one of mountains, forests, and rocky coasts. Mount Neritum — "wooded Neritum" — is the island's dominant feature, mentioned repeatedly. It is on Neritum that Eumaeus's swineherd hut is located, high up in the forest, with a view of the sea. The mountain is a wild place, far from the palace and the town, a space outside civilization where the disguised Odysseus first returns.

Below the mountains, the island has fertile valleys for farming and coastal pastures for the herds of swine, cattle, and sheep that Odysseus's household manages. The sea is everywhere: Ithaca is an island, and every aspect of its life faces outward toward the water. Laertes, Odysseus's father, is said to have a country house with a vineyard and orchards, surrounded by cypresses — a farm where he retires in old age, far from the palace.

The Harbor of Phorcys

When Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca in Book 13, the Phaeacian ship puts in at the harbor of Phorcys, named for the old sea god. Homer describes it in detail: a sheltered cove, with two headlands jutting out on either side to break the waves, and an olive tree standing at the head of the bay, beside a cave sacred to the nymphs. Inside the cave are stone mixing bowls and amphorae, and bees make their honey there. The nymphs of the cave are the first inhabitants of Ithaca that Odysseus encounters, even before Eumaeus.

This is one of the most evocative topographical passages in the entire epic. It is also the scene of a key transformation: it is here, in the cave of the nymphs, that Athena hides the treasure that the Phaeacians have given Odysseus, and here that she transforms him into the wrinkled beggar whose form he will wear until the climactic moment of the bow.

Eumaeus's Hut and the Palace

Two built spaces dominate the Ithacan books: the swineherd's hut of Eumaeus, high on the mountain, and the great palace of Odysseus in the town below. They form a deliberate contrast. The hut is simple, rustic, a place of food and loyalty and true hospitality. It is the space where Odysseus is first received as a stranger by a member of his own household, and where he is reunited with Telemachus. The palace, by contrast, is a grand but violated space — occupied by the suitors, its halls filled with noise and gluttony and insult.

The physical geography of the poem mirrors its moral geography. Odysseus must first climb the mountain to Eumaeus — passing through the wild, the rustic, the true — before he can descend to the palace and reclaim his kingdom. The arc of the second half of the Odyssey, from the harbor of Phorcys to the hut to the palace, is also a spatial and symbolic journey: from the space of nature and disguise, through the space of loyalty and reunion, to the space of restoration and justice.